Silverball Retro Arcade (Asbury Park NJ), 4K arcade walkthrough & tour, May 2024

Asbury Park, New Jersey - a shoreside town with a long history of amusements, including thrilling rides, funhouses, roller coasters, Skee-Ball, and of course, arcade games and pinball. While most of the old stuff has been lost to time and progress, one place on the boardwalk is dedicated to preserving those memories for generations to come. The Silverball Retro Arcade (formerly the Silverball Museum) holds a playable collection of over a hundred different pinball machines and dozens of arcade games, from some of the most well-known and beloved games of all time, to rarities of which perhaps only a dozen still survive today. With machines dating back to the Fifties, stepping into this building is like stepping into another world. This video was recorded during my first ever visit earlier last month, and although I spent a good six hours here playing as much as I could, I felt like I still hadn't even remotely scratched the surface of everything they had available. Even a followup visit with the rest of the family last week barely seems to have made a dent. This is one of those rare places that I feel like I could spend days upon days and still not get tired of everything they have to offer. Placards adorn each machine, giving a paragraph of history, tips, factoids and tricks for each title in the collection. And every game has not one but six separate high score leaderboards, broken down by gender and age range. Although I haven't played well enough to get my name up there yet, if you visit, you might just see my kids' names on a few of those high score rankings -- assuming they haven't been bested yet!
I honestly can't say enough good things about this place. This is, without a doubt, the crown jewel for pinball in the state of New Jersey, a monument to the game which will be hard for anyone to top. That being said, it is kind of weird to see the nearly complete omission of Stern in any form, whether it's from their video games or their pinball machines, for which they were the only game in town for over a decade. This also extends to the other companies that they were involved with; you won't find any Sega or Data East pinball machines in this collection, and although the new school of pinball is thoroughly represented with nearly every single Jersey Jack machine released to date, some of the other up-and-comers don't have any presence here either -- so no Spooky, no American, no Pinball Brothers, etcetera. But this is only a small quibble, and overall, what they DO feature more than makes up for what they don't. Being able to play dozens of classic electromechanical and solid state tables from the 60's through the 90's, all in absolutely pristine condition? That's more than worth the price of admission here.
Website:
www.silverballmuseum.com/asbu...
Zenius:
zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/ar...
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[@laynebryant1020]

fantastic place! I love the notecards on the pinball machines giving the details of the game.

[@S1ckH4ndsRBN]

Absolutely! I learned a lot of interesting facts about all the different games just from reading those placards. It's nice to see a place that formerly advertised itself as a museum actually put more work into their presentation than just "hey, here's a ton of old games". It's clear they have a lot of love and respect for the history of arcade and pinball games.

[@djargus]

My picture on the wall at 4:17 (lower right). I got to meet The Smithereens that day. :) Fun fact, I was Silverball Museum's (now Silverball Arcade) first paying customer when it opened on Cookman Ave in 2009, been going ever since, though more sporadically lately since I found Pinball Map's existence and can more easily find pinball machines that I can't find nearby.

[@S1ckH4ndsRBN]

Very nice!

[@LittleRockElevators]

I would love to come to this place.

[@S1ckH4ndsRBN]

I honestly can't recommend it enough. Definitely try to make it out if you're ever in the area!

[@LittleRockElevators]

@@S1ckH4ndsRBN down here in Arkansas (Sherwood to be exact), there's a place called The Vortex where there's retro games as well and a few modern ones too.